Warriors: Patience is necessary when it comes to Jordan Poole

Golden State Warriors rookie shooting guard Jordan Poole has struggled immensely early on in his career. But patience is absolutely a virtue when it comes to the rookie.

The Golden State Warriors have dealt with their fair share of growing pains so far this season and perhaps no player’s performance has been more evident of those growing pains than rookie Jordan Poole.

Poole was selected by the Warriors with the 28th pick in the first round of the 2019 NBA Draft. And with a depleted core, it was expected that Poole would have to play some minutes early in his career to make up for the team’s offseason losses.

How much he’d be forced to play, however, could not have been anticipated.

Injuries to many of the Warriors’ top stars and role players have forced Poole to play significantly more than expected and significantly more than he ever really should have been playing this early in his career.

Coming out of Michigan, the report on Poole was that he was an exciting, energetic shooter who endeared himself to fans and his team just as much as he would frustrate them.

Some nights he’d be a dead-eye shooter knocking down over 50 percent of his three-point attempts. And other nights, he’d struggle to hit even 20 percent of his overall field goal attempts.

But never would he be afraid to chuck up shots.

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And as expected, we’ve seen both sides of Poole this season. Unfortunately, it’s been significantly more of the latter than the former.

Poole is shooting just 28.2 percent from both three-point range and from the field giving him some of the worst metrics in the NBA. But the thing is, he hasn’t exactly shied away from shooting despite his low percentages.

Only D’Angelo Russell has averaged more field goal attempts per 100 possesions on the team with Poole averaging 10.9 attempts per game. And out of all 159 NBA players with at least eight shot attempts per game, Poole’s 28.2 percent is far and away the worst.

He’s been a liability on both ends of the floor and it’s getting increasingly harder to justify giving him 25+ minutes per game. That said, it’s important to be patient with him.

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Poole was never supposed to be in this role, to begin with, which certainly explains his struggles. The Michigan product was seen as more of a high-ceiling, developmental player who needed time to grow and mature before he could be a regular bench contributor in the NBA.

Not only are the Warriors asking him to regularly contribute, they’re asking him to start. It’s an unfair position to put the rookie in, but they’ve unfortunately been given no choice.

In an ideal situation, Poole would be on a two-way contract playing sparingly coming off the bench while also using part of this season to develop his skills in the G-League.

This is not an ideal situation.

Poole is still just 20-years-old and he has plenty of room for growth. Sure, it’s discouraging to see him struggle and hurt the team this much early in his career, but this is far from his end product.

But for now, the Warriors are just going to have to live with the growing pains and ride the struggle bus.